April 18, 2021: Rivers of the Desert

               Rivers of the Desert

The rivers of the desert

Carve deep into the stone,

Stripping the banks like an outlaw

Who needs to be left alone.

 

A river in the desert

Stays hidden, and he's running fast;

Pioneering the future

while he delves down into the past.

 

I am a river.

I'm changing the land.

Not much to give

To the rock and the sand,

So for now, I take it away.

For now, that's the role I play.

One day,

I'll grow wide and provide

For a lush, green valley.

I do believe that's the plan.

I've really got no time to dally.

I can only do what I can!

 

I become a raging torrent

From occasional pelting rains,

And then I become a trickle,

Hardly able to sustain

The wildlife and the foliage

Who dwell in this narrow gorge,

Yet they keep on coming back

Because the dry desert heat is a scourge.

 

I am a river.

I'm changing the land.

Not much to give

To the rock and the sand,

So for now, I take it away.

For now, that's the role I play.

One day,

I'll grow wide and provide

For a lush, green valley.

I do believe that's the plan.

I've really got no time to dally.

I can only do what I can!

April 18, 2021: XXXII II. 103. naco re mero man, matta hoy - by Kabir in "Songs of Kabir", pg. 80

II. 103.  Naco Re Mero Man, Matta Hoy

Dance, my heart!  dance today with joy.
The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music,
And the world is listening to its melodies:

Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music.
The hills and the sea and the earth dance. 
The world of man dances in laughter and tears.

Why put on the robe of the monk, and live aloof from the world in lonely pride?

Behold !  my heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts;
and the Creator is well pleased.

April 17, 2021: Spirit Song

Spirit Song

 

I’m swept away by the sounds of the day;

The neighbor’s singing to his radio.

I’m like a child in endless play!

The birds!  They are singing in stereo.

 

Images swell like a transient brook

When the moment is touching my feelings,

And then they are gone – I don’t know where to look

For the message that needs revealing.

 

But I run from feelings when my words don’t jell.

I look for them later – they’re gone.

Soon I will have to break out of this spell

For the vision cries out to be drawn.

 

Words escape me, but thought knows its time.

I can’t tell you how they are chosen,

But like a dry well that just needs to be primed,

The Spirit awakens the ages once frozen.

 

Strong as a mountain of solid stone;

Bright as the sun when it shines in your eyes,

The Spirit plays like a saxophone;

Enlivens the night in its improvise.

 

Like bees in the meadows, we dance with the hum

To point the way towards the nectar.

The Spirit says, “Let my children come,
                  And I will be their protector." 

April 17, 2021: The Sage Lectured by Stephen Crane in the Mentor Bk of Major Amer. Poets, pg. 229

The Sage Lectured

The sage lectured brilliantly.
Before him, two images:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
He turned away.
Then a cunning pupil
Changed the positions.
Turned the sage again:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
The pupils sat, grinning,
And rejoiced in the game.
But the sage was a sage.

April 16, 2021: Faith and Doubt

 Faith And Doubt

There remains in me a desire to know:
What is right? What is whole?
I know I’m a seed, and I just want to grow,
And make sense of what I feel in my soul!
 
I have no attachments, for nothing is mine,
My aim is to nurture my part of creation;
Seek myself in the meeting of fruit and vine;
Fulfillment from a broken relation!
 
Losing myself, I’ll be finding me,
As I persist in my journey from day to day.
I’ve seen that the only way to be free
Is to follow a wise and disciplined way.
 
So what could I possibly have to hide
As I flow from such feelings and reason?
Well, just that I may wait too long for a ride;
For mutations to find their season.

April 16, 2021: The Scholar by Robert Southey, in Harvard Classics, Vol. 42, page 734.

The Scholar

My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

With them I take delight in weal
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.

My hopes are with the Dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;
Yet having here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

April 15, 2021: The Virtuous Life

               The Virtuous Life

 Righteous living is a high ideal;

The harmonious journey on the stony path;

The confrontation with what is real;

The smartening rod; the protecting laugh.

 

Oh, I am ready to leap to the battle call,

But what is difficult is to sustain

My impossible quest when my back’s to the wall,

Or when life becomes crazy, or plain.

 

Sometimes untroubled, the days go past,

And thoughts blow by but remain unspoken.

“Good” takes the form of a sheet of glass:

Hard and clear, and easily broken!

 

Mold it like sand, and it falls apart,

And those never reach it who are trapped in its lines.

Virtue is natural, as the pulse of the heart,

And intentional – from the depth of the mind.

 

Virtue is not a mortuary

For dressing up the dead.

Virtue is not a monastery,

Or just keeping clothed and fed.

 

Virtue is not making sacrifices,

Nor is it the blowing of horns,

But detaching one’s self from all enticements,

And saying “For This I was born!”

 

Virtue takes care and sobriety,

But its lonesomeness isn’t bored.

It’s the cutting edge of society,

And it’s the wounds of that double-edged sword.

 

To virtue belongs a baby’s crying,

And indifference which is never aloof:

But conscious, confident, hopeful, climbing

The mountain of Beauty and Truth.

 

Virtue is an imposition for fools –

For it’s the only real way to be.

It’s facing the truth, no matter how cruel,

With a resolve that can set you free!